What Is HTML

Background of HTML

Earlier when internet was very new and with a slow data transfer speed it was not possible to browse webpages like we do now a days. The data was transferred over internet in the form of separate files like *.txt, *.doc or any other file instead of a hypertext file (webpage). User had to download the complete file which s/he wanted to. But still it wasn’t sure that user could access files’ data. As after downloading the file, to access its data, user needed the appropriate application to run/execute that file. If the user didn’t have the appropriate application, to run/execute the file, s/he couldn’t access the data of the file.

Also, it was a very much time consuming process to download the file as speed of the internet was very slow and files were very heavy sized due to having formatted data. In this scenario low internet speed was very annoying for the users to download heavy sized files.

These were the real problems as everyone didn’t have the appropriate application or faster internet speed to download or even have a look at (browse) a file on internet.

Then it was realized that software (web browser) should be designed which could display a simple hypertext markup files (without any formatting) into well-formatted and well-organized document (webpages). For this purpose HTML and web browsers were developed.

HTML is not a case sensitive language- a language which doesn’t care whether the statements are written in upper or lower case– and HTML tags can be written in either lower or upper case letters and you’ll not receive any error. Feel free to write HTML tags in whatever case you want to but it is recommended to write in lower case instead of upper case letters.

Why HTML Is Called Hypertext Markup Language

You’ll be thinking as a hypertext file contains simple text without any formatting then how the webpagelooked formatted when we download and see them on a web browser. You’ve raised a valid and a good question. HTML is a called a markup language which means it uses some marks (symbolized letters i.e. some text ). These marks play a vital role in the formatting of a webpages and help the web browser to recognize the specific formatting to be applied on the text or part of text, makes tables and inserts lists and images in a webpage. You’ll further read about tags in the next blog What Are Tags (Marks) in HTML.

Why It Is Called Hypertext Markup Language

Now the actual and core problem was solved. Then further it was realized that these webpages should be interlinked to each other so that users should be provided an easy access to other related webpages of the website being visited.To fulfill these requirements Hyper Link was introduced. Hyper Link is a link assigned to simple text or to an image which directs a user to another webpage or website by clicking on it. You can identify and distinguish a Hyper Link from the simple ordinary text or image by observing the change in the shape of the mouse pointer, from an arrow to hand, and after clicking on it you get another webpage or websiteon the same or in new window. Due to these marks (a browser reads to format a webpage) and Hyper Links HTML is called Hyper Text Markup Language.

Versions of HTML

HTML has many versions. Its versions start from HTML 2.0 and goes to HTML 4.01. It’s new and upcoming version is HTML 5 which will be released in 2014.